Index for Section 1

Alphabetical listing for M

Bottom of page

msh(1)
NAME
  msh - MH shell (only available within the message handling system, mh)

SYNOPSIS
  msh [-help] [-prompt string] [file]

OPTIONS
  -help
      Prints a list of the valid options for this command.

  -prompt string
      Sets the prompt for msh. If the string you specify includes white
      space, you must enclose it in double quotes ("). If you do not specify
      this option, the default prompt is (msh).

  The following defaults are used by msh:

       file defaults to ./msgbox
       -prompt	(msh)

DESCRIPTION
  The command msh is an interactive program that implements a subset of the
  normal MH commands operating on a single file in packf format.  That is,
  msh is used to read a file that contains a number of messages, as opposed
  to the standard MH style of reading a number of files, each file being a
  separate message in a folder.

  The chief advantage of msh is that, unlike the normal MH style, it allows a
  file to have more than one message in it. In addition, msh can be used on
  other files, such as message archives which have been packed using packf.

  When invoked, msh reads the named file, and enters a command loop. You can
  type most of the normal MH commands. The syntax and semantics of these
  commands typed to msh are identical to their MH counterparts. In cases
  where the nature of msh would be inconsistent with the way MH works (for
  example, specifying a +folder with some commands), msh will duly inform
  you. The commands that msh currently supports are:

       ali	   burst	comp	    dist	 folder
       forw	   inc		mark	    mhmail	 msgchk
       next	   packf	pick	    prev	 refile
       repl	   rmm		scan	    send	 show
       sortm	   whatnow	whom

  In addition, msh has a help command which gives a brief overview of all the
  msh options. To terminate msh, either type <CTRL/D>, or use the quit
  command. If the file is writable and has been modified, then using quit
  will ask you if the file should be updated.

  A redirection facility is supported by msh. Commands may be followed by one
  of the following standard symbols:

  |   Open an interprocess channel; connect output to another command.

  >   Write output to file.

  >>  Append output to file.

  If file starts with a tilde (~), then a C-shell-like expansion takes place.
  Note that commands are interpreted by sh(1).

  When parsing commands to the left of any redirection symbol, msh will honor
  the backslash (\) as the quote next-character symbol, and double quotes (")
  as quote-word delimiters. All other input tokens are separated by white
  space (spaces and tabs).

  You may wish to use an alternative profile for the commands that msh
  executes; see mh_profile(4) for details of the $MH environment variable.

RESTRICTIONS
  The msh shell is not the C-shell, and a lot of the facilities provided by
  the latter are not present in the former. In particular, msh does not
  support back-quoting, history substitutions, variable substitutions, or
  alias substitutions.

  msh does not understand back-quoting. The only effective way to use pick
  inside msh is to always use the seq select option. If you add the following
  line to your .mh_profile, pick will work equally well from both the shell
  and msh:

       pick: -seq select -list

  There is a strict limit of messages per file in packf format which msh can
  handle. Usually, this limit is 1000 messages.

PROFILE COMPONENTS
  Path: To determine your Mail directory

  Msg-Protect: To set protections when creating a new file

  fileproc: Program to file messages

  showproc: Program to show messages

FILES
  $HOME/.mh_profile
      The user profile.

  /usr/lib/mh/mtstailor
      The system customization file.

SEE ALSO
  csh(1), packf(1), sh(1), mh_profile(4)

Index for Section 1

Alphabetical listing for M

Top of page